Alvelda coat of arms, painted with gold leaf

Domus · Alvelda · 976

The Codex
Albeldensis

The book made at Albelda — Codex Vigilanus

In 976, in the monastery of San Martín de Albelda, the monk Vigila, his companion Sarracino and his pupil García finished one of the great books of early medieval Spain. It is now at El Escorial, and every page of it can be read online.

429 leaves45.5 × 32.5 cmVisigothic scriptEl Escorial, d.I.2

See the foliosRead the whole book at RBME Digital ↗

A page divided into nine framed panels of standing figures: three kings, a queen and two kings, and three scribes
f. 428r The makers and the kings. Top row: the Visigothic kings Chindasuinth, Recceswinth and Egica, whose laws the codex copies. Middle row: Queen Urraca, King Sancho Garcés II of Pamplona and his brother Ramiro, king of Viguera. Bottom row: the three makers, Sarracino, Vigila and García, each named in his panel. Zoom in on the RBME viewer ↗Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 428r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.

I976Codex Vigilanus

What it is

It is a single enormous book: 429 leaves of parchment, each 45.5 by 32.5 centimetres, written in Visigothic script in two columns. Its makers called it a book of councils and laws. Scholars call it the Codex Vigilanus, after its chief scribe, or the Codex Albeldensis (in Spanish the Códice Albeldense), after the place it was made. It was finished in 976 (era 1014 in the Spanish reckoning) and is now in the Real Biblioteca of El Escorial, shelfmark d.I.2.

Two other names are easy to confuse with it. The Chronica Albeldensia is a short 9th-century chronicle that the codex contains. The Codex Aemilianensis (El Escorial d.I.1) is a copy made from it at San Millán de la Cogolla, usually dated 994. Both appear below and are labelled.

DOCUMENTED

II924 – 976San Martín de Albelda

The scribes and the monastery

After they took Nájera and Viguera in 923, King Sancho Garcés I of Pamplona and Queen Toda founded a monastery at Albelda, dedicated to St Martin of Tours, in 924. Its first cells were cut into the rock above the town. By 950 it was said to hold two hundred monks. That year Godescalc, bishop of Le Puy, stopped there on his way to Compostela and had a book copied, the earliest recorded pilgrim to Santiago from beyond the Pyrenees.

The codex names its makers. Vigila was the scribe and painter; Sarracino was his companion; García was his pupil. All three appear on folio 428r, beneath the kings, and Vigila seems to have painted himself at his desk on the opening leaf.

DOCUMENTED

A page filled with a dense chequered grid of letters inside an interlaced frame
f. 19rThe labyrinthf. 19r A letter labyrinth: hundreds of letters set in a grid, to be read along paths through it. A note at the foot, in a later hand, reads ob honorem S. Martini, “in honour of St Martin”, the patron of Albelda. Zoom in on the RBME viewer ↗Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 19r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.

IIIff. 1 – 429Contents

What is inside

Opening the book, you meet figured poems, letter labyrinths, calendars and wheels for reckoning time, Christ in majesty, Adam and Eve, Noah and a small map of the world, and a tree of the degrees of kinship. Then comes the main work: the canons of the church councils of Spain and beyond, with the Councils of Toledo illustrated, and the letters of the popes.

After them come the Chronica Albeldensia (ff. 238v–242v), lives of famous men, and the Liber Iudicum, the Visigothic law code later called the Fuero Juzgo. On folio 12v, in a passage on arithmetic, the scribe wrote out the nine Hindu-Arabic numerals, 9 down to 1, with no zero. It is the earliest dated appearance of these numerals in a Western book.

DOCUMENTED

A page of two text columns; a short line of nine numerals is written in red near the top of the right column
f. 12vThe nine numeralsf. 12v In a passage on arithmetic the scribe notes the subtle way the Indians write numbers, then draws the nine figures, from 9 down to 1, with no zero. They sit in the right-hand column, about a third of the way down (enlarge to see them). This is the earliest dated appearance of Hindu-Arabic numerals in a Western manuscript. Zoom in on the RBME viewer ↗Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 12v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.

Codex Vigilanus · El Escorial d.I.2 · in book order

The folios

18 more folios, with the opening leaf and the binding, in the order of the book. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows; click any page to see it large and zoom to full resolution. It is a small selection: all 429 leaves are online at the Escorial’s digital library (part 1, part 2).

  1. The Codex Vigilanus closed: a worn reddish-brown leather binding with blind-tooled frames and a central stamp
    Binding The codex today, in a later leather binding with a blind-stamped centre device. The binding is not the original of 976.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, binding. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  2. A torn parchment leaf with a painted arch; inside, a seated monk in a red robe writes at a slanted desk
    Opening leaf The damaged opening leaf. Under an arch, a monk sits at a slanted desk and writes, with a verse above him. It is usually read as Vigila’s portrait of himself at the start of his book (facsimile literature numbers it f. XXIIv).Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, opening leaf (verso). Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  3. A framed page filled with a grid of tiny letters; gold and coloured letters form a cross-like figure
    f. 1v A figured poem (carmen figuratum). Every square of the grid holds a letter, and the letters picked out in colour form a figure that carries a second set of verses.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 1v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  4. A framed grid of letters with a branching, tree-like figure picked out in blue and green
    f. 2r Another figured poem. Here the coloured letters trace a branching figure through the grid.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 2r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  5. A framed grid of letters with a diamond shape and a cross picked out in green
    f. 3v A third figured poem, its hidden verses set out as a lozenge and a cross.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 3v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  6. A page with six coloured circular diagrams above two columns of text
    f. 7v Wheels for reckoning time (computus): circular tables for the cycles of the moon and the calendar.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 7v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  7. A large circular diagram with winged figures arranged like spokes around a blue centre
    f. 14v A wheel of the winds: winged figures around a central disc.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 14v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  8. A stepped, pyramid-shaped table of kinship terms, with a painted head at the top and leafy scrolls along its edges
    f. 15r A tree of kinship (arbor): a stepped table of the degrees of relationship, from Isidore of Seville, used to decide which marriages the Church allowed. A head looks out from the top. Any genealogist will recognise it.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 15r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  9. Christ enthroned inside a red diamond-shaped frame, with angels in the corners
    f. 16v Christ in majesty in a lozenge-shaped glory, with angels.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 16v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  10. Adam and Eve stand on either side of a tree with a serpent, framed in a rounded arch
    f. 17r Adam and Eve with the serpent and the tree.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 17r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  11. A page with a panel of standing figures, a small circular world map and an arched scene below
    f. 17v Noah and his sons, a small round map of the world, and Paradise.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 17v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  12. A large ornamented cross beneath a decorated arch, with hanging pendants and lettering below
    f. 18v A great jewelled cross under an arch, with pendants hanging from its arms.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 18v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  13. A framed page covered in a diagonal lattice pattern of red, blue and gold squares
    f. 19v A second grid page, worked as a diagonal lattice in red, blue and gold.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 19v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  14. Two arches: a book on a lectern on the left, a seated man pointing at it on the right; a large interlace initial below
    f. 20v The book and its reader. On the left the codex lies on its lectern (labelled CODEX and ANALOGIUM); on the right the reader (LECTOR) points to it. Below begins a verse dialogue between the book and the reader.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 20v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  15. A page with a tall interlaced initial and coloured display capitals at the top of a text column
    f. 70v The canons begin: CANONES in display capitals beside a tall interlace initial.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 70v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  16. A page of dense two-column text in Visigothic script
    f. 238v The Chronica Albeldensia begins here. The chronicle was written at the Asturian court in 881 and continued to 883; this codex holds its oldest copy.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 238v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  17. A page of two text columns with a red cross and a small note in the right margin
    f. 241r The chronicle names Albelda: Albaidam urbem fortissimam, “Albelda, a very strong city”, which Ordoño I took after the battle on Monte Laturce in 859. A later reader marked the passage with a red cross in the margin.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 241r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  18. A painting of a city gate and rows of robed churchmen above two columns of text
    f. 344r How a council is held (Ordo de celebrando concilio): the city, and the bishops seated in council.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 344r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  19. A framed page with two rows of gold roundels beside lists of chapter titles
    f. 358v The contents of the Liber Iudicum, the Visigothic law code later known as the Fuero Juzgo, set in roundels.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 358v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
  20. A page of verse in coloured capitals inside a broad frame of interlaced roundels with leaves
    f. 428v A closing poem in a garland frame. Its first line names Vigila (…solacium Vigilanti…).Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 428v. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
A full-page painting of a walled city with towers above rows of seated churchmen
f. 142rToledo in councilf. 142r Toledo: the walled city and the bishops in council, illustrating the Councils of Toledo. Zoom in on the RBME viewer ↗Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-2, f. 142r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.

IV1435 → 16th c.To El Escorial

The journey to El Escorial

In the 12th century the monastery became a collegiate church of canons. In 1435 a papal bull joined it to Santa María la Redonda in Logroño, and the books went with it. In the 16th century the codex was in the hands of the Count of Buendía, who gave it to King Philip II. Philip placed it in his new library at San Lorenzo de El Escorial, where it has stayed ever since.

The Escorial catalogue names the 16th-century scholars who worked on it there, among them Ambrosio de Morales and Juan Bautista Pérez. Today the library has photographed every leaf and put the whole book online.

DOCUMENTED · PATH IN LOCAL SOURCES

VAlbelda → AlveldaThe name

Why it matters to the Alvelda name

The family name comes from the place. Albelda, written Alvelda because b and v sound alike in Spanish, is the village in the Iregua valley where this book was made. The chronicle inside it even names the town, on folio 241r, as Albaidam urbem fortissimam, “a very strong city”.

To be clear: nothing connects our family to the making of the codex. No Alvelda is named in it, and no one in the family owned it. It is here because it is the most famous thing ever to come out of the place our name is from.

CONTEXT · NOT A FAMILY RECORD

El Escorial d.I.1 · San Millán de la Cogolla · c. 994

Its copy: the Codex Aemilianensis

Made at San Millán de la Cogolla from the Vigilanus, by a different painter. Shown for comparison; these pages are not from the Albelda book. Read the Aemilianensis at RBME Digital.

Codex Aemilianensis: a page of nine framed panels of standing kings, a queen and churchmen on a blue ground
Codex Aemilianensis, f. 453r Codex Aemilianensis, not the Vigilanus: the matching nine-panel page in the copy made at San Millán de la Cogolla. The same kings and queen appear, with San Millán’s own bishop and scribes in place of Vigila, Sarracino and García.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-1, f. 453r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.
Codex Aemilianensis: Adam and Eve beside a tree with a serpent
Codex Aemilianensis, f. 14r Codex Aemilianensis, not the Vigilanus: Adam and Eve with the serpent, the San Millán painter’s version of Vigilanus f. 17r.Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, d-I-1, f. 14r. Photograph: RBME Digital (free use under its terms of use); whole page; the photographer’s backdrop trimmed to the edge of the leaf, resized only.

VI1769 · 1867The place

Albelda and its valley

Albelda lies about ten kilometres south of Logroño, where the Río Iregua leaves the Cameros hills. The oldest pictures of it we could find under an open licence are maps: Tomás López’s map of La Rioja (1769), which marks Albelda by the river, and his map of the Logroño district (1787). The Blaeu atlas shows the neighbouring kingdom of Navarre.

For the 19th century there are photographs of Nájera, the royal city of the kings on folio 428r, and of Logroño, whose church absorbed Albelda’s. We found no early photograph or engraving of the monastery ruins or caves themselves that we are free to reuse, so the two views of Albelda here are modern and labelled with their year.

DOCUMENTED · OLD MAPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

The Iregua valley · La Rioja

The place: Albelda, the Iregua and the kingdom

Old maps and 19th-century photographs of Albelda and its region, oldest first, then two modern views of Albelda, labelled as modern.

Detail of an engraved 1769 map: the town of Logroño on the river Ebro, and Albelda beside the Río Iregua to the south
Map, 1769 (detail) Albelda on Tomás López’s Mapa de la Rioja (Madrid, 1769), detail: Logroño on the Ebro at the top, the Río Iregua running south, and Albelda beside it, with Nalda, Clavijo and Viguera.Tomás López, Mapa de la Rioja dividida en alta, y baja, Madrid, 1769. Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. Detail cropped by us.
A hand-coloured engraved map of La Rioja from 1769 with an ornate cartouche at the upper right
Map, 1769 The whole of La Rioja, Upper and Lower, on Tomás López’s map of 1769. Albelda lies just south of Logroño, in the middle of the map.Tomás López de Vargas Machuca, Mapa de la Rioja, 1769. Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliográfico, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
A richly hand-coloured 17th-century map of the kingdom of Navarre with a coat of arms and figures in the cartouche
Map, c. 1638 Navarra Regnum, the kingdom of Navarre, from the Blaeu atlas of Amsterdam, hand-coloured by Dirk Jansz van Santen for the Atlas Van der Hagen (c. 1638). The Ebro and the Rioja border run along its southern edge. In 976 Albelda lay in this kingdom’s predecessor, the kingdom of Pamplona.Willem and Joan Blaeu, Navarra Regnum, coloured by Dirk Jansz van Santen, Atlas Van der Hagen, KB, national library of the Netherlands, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
An engraved black-and-white map of the Logroño district with mountains drawn as small hills
Map, 1787 The districts of Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Logroño, then part of the province of Burgos, by Tomás López, 1787.Tomás López de Vargas Machuca, Mapa geográfico que comprende los Partidos de Santo Domingo de la Calzada y de Logroño, 1787, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
A 19th-century photograph of a long stone bridge across a wide riverbed, with red cliffs behind
Photograph, c. 1867 Nájera, the royal seat of the kings of Pamplona-Nájera painted on f. 428r: the bridge over the Najerilla, photographed by José Martínez Sánchez around 1867.José Martínez Sánchez, Puente de Nájera, c. 1867. Biblioteca Nacional de España, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.
A 19th-century photograph of a narrow street leading to a church with two baroque towers
Photograph, c. 1870 Logroño, the nearest city, ten kilometres north of Albelda: the Calle del Mercado and the towers of Santa María la Redonda, which absorbed Albelda’s collegiate church in 1435. Photographed by J. Laurent around 1870.J. Laurent, Logroño, vista de la Calle del Mercado, c. 1870. Biblioteca Nacional de España, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.
A modern photograph of a weathered sandstone outcrop with small cave openings cut into it
Modern photograph, 2021 Modern photograph (2021). What is left of the monastery of San Martín de Albelda: the cut rock above the town, with openings of the old cave cells. No 19th- or early-20th-century photograph of the site could be found under an open licence.Bea.miau, 2021, via Wikimedia Commons. CC0.
A modern photograph of a town square with apartment buildings and a large pale rock outcrop behind them
Modern photograph, 2013 Modern photograph (2013). Albelda de Iregua today, with the pale rock outcrop rising behind the square.Zarateman, 2013, via Wikimedia Commons. CC0.

Fontes · Sources

  1. RBME Digital, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial: Códice Vigilano o Albeldense; Collectio canonum Hispana, d-I-2 (1º), ff. XXII, 1r–238r, 455 × 325 mm, dated 976 (full digitisation)
  2. RBME Digital: Códice Vigilano o Albeldense, d-I-2 (2º), ff. 238v–429, including the Chronicon Albeldense (full digitisation)
  3. RBME catalogue record (onomástico): Vigila, Sarracino, García; Ambrosio de Morales, Juan Bautista Pérez, Juan Vázquez del Mármol
  4. RBME Digital: Códice Emilianense, d-I-1, the San Millán copy (parts 1–3: items 13263, 13265, 13267)
  5. Guillermo Antolín, Catálogo de los códices latinos de la Real Biblioteca del Escorial, vol. I (Madrid, 1910), pp. 368–404 (d-I-2)
  6. Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, Libros y librerías en la Rioja altomedieval (Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 1979; 2nd ed. 1991), on the Albelda scriptorium and its books
  7. Soledad de Silva y Verástegui, Iconografía del siglo X en el reino de Pamplona-Nájera (Pamplona, 1984), on the miniatures
  8. Charles Julian Bishko, “Salvus of Albelda and Frontier Monasticism in Tenth-Century Navarre”, Speculum 23.4 (1948), pp. 559–590
  9. José Fernández Montaña, “El códice albeldense o vigilano, que se conserva en El Escorial”, Museo Español de Antigüedades 3 (1874), pp. 509–544
  10. Biblioteca Gonzalo de Berceo: Códice Albeldense o Vigilano (folio-by-folio notes after Silva y Verástegui)
  11. Monasterio de San Martín de Albelda: foundation 924, collegiate church 1167–80, united with Santa María la Redonda 1435
  12. Codex Vigilanus / Codex Albeldensis (overview)
  13. Albelda de Iregua: Códice Albeldense (the codex’s path via Logroño and the Count of Buendía to Philip II)

On certainty

DOCUMENTED: from the manuscript itself, the library catalogue or standard scholarship. PATH IN LOCAL SOURCES: the route from Logroño to Philip II is told in local and secondary sources; we have not seen the original documents. CONTEXT · NOT A FAMILY RECORD: the codex tells us about the place, not about our ancestors.

The folio photographs are whole pages, as the Escorial’s terms of use ask: we trimmed only the photographer’s grey backdrop around each leaf, straightened a few by less than a degree and resized them. Where the curve of an open page leaves a corner of backdrop showing, that corner is painted the dark ground of this page. Nothing on the leaf itself is changed or cut away.

The whole book RBME Digital, part 1 (ff. 1–238) · part 2 (ff. 238–429) · IIIF manifest 1 · IIIF manifest 2